Tulip wood is occasionally found as a cross-banding upon mahogany, but as it is decidedly reddish in its tone it approaches mahogany too much to make a good contrasting veneer. It is more naturally used with satin wood, from which it has a marked difference.

Tulip is a wood only to be had in small pieces as a rule, and is consequently nearly always found as a veneer, but I have seen an exceptionally fine and tall Sheraton glass-fronted cabinet for china which had solid tulip mouldings. This was a unique specimen. As used in cross-bandings, tulip may be recognised by the dark reddish lines on a yellowish ground which stretch in irregular widths - some nearly half an inch, many but 1/32 of an inch wide, across the piece. The wood which chiefly resembles it, and was much used by the French eighteenth century cabinetmakers, is kingwood. Mr. Litchfield, in fact, notices in the appendix to his History of Furniture that in France the names are interchanged, and the much richer red and darker kind which we call kingwood, and which finds its nearest affinity perhaps in rosewood, is denominated tulip. Rosewood is a much darker species than either. It is familiar as used in pianofortes, and, I think, was more popular at the beginning of the nineteenth century and onwards than in the days of Heppelwhite or Sheraton.

Lancewood is said to be a good deal used now as a substitute for satin wood. It is of a similar colour, but has not the bars and sheen in its grain. It is said that old shafts of vehicles are much sought after as affording a supply of lancewood for cutting up.

When satin wood is used in Sheraton style furniture as the chief material for veneer, the arrangement in tables is very often the following: - The border of the table top is banded with tulip, and so also is its edge or side. On the inside of the top border comes a thin stringing of box, followed by another of the same breadth, perhaps 1/16th of an inch, of ebony. Why box should have been so much used as a stringing on satin-wood tables it is rather difficult to understand, as its colour when the table is polished is nearly the same, the only difference, not very noticeable, being that of the lesser granulations of box. The use of ebony is easily to be explained by the excellent effect its dark hue produces between the tulip and the satin wood. Sometimes two lines of ebony enclosing one of box can be found, or two of ebony with three of box, the widths being varied. In fact, the changes are rung in the proportions as much as they are in the ruled and gilt or painted lines of the mounts of those old collectors who took a pride in the proper display of their drawings or engravings. But box, ebony, and tulip woods are the usual combination upon satin-wood tables.

In special cases lines of ivory are found employed with very dainty effect.

A very considerable use was made for secretaires with falling fronts, tea-caddies, and small desks either for placing on a table or upon their own tapering legs, of a material called 'harewood.' This is said to be sycamore dyed to a brown which verges on the side of green. Harewood has parallel lines in it which make it resemble a dark species of satin wood, but the lines are twice as close together, and there is not the sheen of satin wood. It is said that modern harewood approaches the very slightly greenish brown tinge which I have mentioned, whilst the genuine old stained wood is an undoubted brown. This may or may not be the case, but I have certainly noticed these differences of colour between old and new panels of this wood. As I observed before, laburnum used in the ordinary way is not unlike harewood, but it has not the unmistakable bars across it which render hare comparable in figuring at least to satin wood, though their hues are vastly different.